


Teeth

by attack_on_toast



Category: Free!
Genre: 30 Days of Rin Week 2, Fluff and Crack, M/M, Mild Language, its like a coffee shop au except with dentists, mentions of reigisa in the background, they're like 25-26 years old
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-04 15:06:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3072413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attack_on_toast/pseuds/attack_on_toast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rin Matsuoka really did NOT want to be here. He didn’t like the feel of this place, all sterile and white, with strategically placed posters advertising the benefits of dental health, and how you would rot in hell if you didn’t floss at least once a day. He was about to walk out of the office, scheduled appointment be damned, when he received a rather painful reminder of why he was here in the first place - he had a horrible toothache.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Teeth

**Author's Note:**

> My contribution to the 30 Days of Rin thing (and also my first work for the Free! fandom woot)! 
> 
> And yes, I am one of those people who just copy and paste the first paragraph of their work as the summary.
> 
> And I really need help with titles.
> 
> Millions of thanks to my amazing beta fish Gabe (timelordsies.tumblr.com) (if there are errors that was probably stuff I added right before submitting XD)

Rin Matsuoka really did NOT want to be here. He didn’t like the feel of this place, all sterile and white, with strategically placed posters advertising the benefits of dental health, and how you would rot in hell if you didn’t floss at least once a day. He was about to walk out of the office, scheduled appointment be damned, when he received a rather painful reminder of why he was here in the first place - he had a horrible toothache.

He didn’t quite remember when the toothache started, only that it had gotten worse over the past few weeks. His jaw throbbed every time he tried to chew something, and the pain had gotten so bad that for the past couple of days he had been living off of applesauce and V8. Rei had even visited him with a few jars of baby formula, claiming that it had ‘essential nutrients that he couldn’t procure from his current diet’ and that eating applesauce for breakfast, lunch, and dinner ‘was extremely unhealthy’, but Rin had put his foot down. No way was he eating baby formula, especially not baby formula that was very likely left over from the brat kid that Rei and Nagisa had adopted about a year ago.

It was Makoto who had finally convinced him to go to the dentist, mostly by offhandedly mentioning that his new solid food-less diet would probably start affecting his performance in the pool. Rin was not about to lose his hard earned spot on Team Japan because of some measly toothache, so he allowed Makoto to set up an appointment for him with some dentist that he and Nagisa knew. Of course, when Rin had agreed to that he - and apparently everyone else involved - had forgotten one minor detail.

Rin had sharp-ass shark teeth

He ran his tongue over his pointy teeth with worry. It wasn't like they were strange to him, of course. His teeth were rather sharp even when he was a child, and his adult teeth had grown in to be unusually pointy as well. When he was in Australia, he had - after an especially rough competition where he didn’t even come within three seconds of his personal record - decided to sharpen them completely. He had visited the shady dental work parlor on the edge of the campus - the one that specialized in permanent grills and inlaying precious stones into false teeth - and had gotten his teeth sharpened completely. It’d caused a lot of worry with Lori and Russel and quite a few, rather painful, mishaps, (including the time when he bit off half of his lip) but he’d gotten used to it. His strange, spiky teeth were a part of him now, as much as his red hair or swimming, and they were a part of him that he didn’t want to give up.

What if his dentist said that he would have to fill in his teeth? Was it even possible to do something like that? Rin’s mind buzzed with worry. Then an even more horrific thought struck him: What if he needed dentures? Rin did not fucking want dentures.

He wandered up to the secretary’s desk and cleared his throat, still wondering about the possible repercussions that dentures would have on his swimming performance. The secretary didn’t look up at him, engrossed in whatever was happening on his computer screen. From his violent smashing of the right and left buttons of his keyboard, Rin figured that he was more likely playing an... intense... game of Tetris than he was doing actual office work.

Rin cleared his throat again, then muttered “Excuse me?”

To be honest, Rin wouldn’t have minded if he didn’t get a response. He could just leave and tell Makoto and the others that they had been too busy and wouldn’t be able to see him. He wouldn’t technically be lying, and he wouldn’t have to face the dentist’s judgment on his teeth. Instead of ignoring him, this time the secretary -  Mikoshiba Momotarou, as his nametag read - lifted one finger and held it much too close to Rin’s face for comfort. Rin took the index finger held up about an inch away from his nose to mean that the boy needed a minute to finish whatever he was doing on his computer, so Rin took a step back. Usually being brushed off like this would have annoyed Rin, but right now his mind was too preoccupied with his impending dentist appointment to bother with being mad at some rude secretary.

About thirty seconds later, Mikoshiba let out a triumphant shout, which Rin took to mean that he was done with whatever he was doing. After completing an obnoxious fist pump, the boy turned to face Rin.

“You’re here for an appointment, right?”

“Yeah,” Rin muttered, trying to show his teeth as little as possible.

“Name?” Mikoshiba asked, suddenly all business. Or at least as businesslike as a kid with absurdly orange hair could be.

“Matsuoka… Rin.”

“You’re related to Kou - senpai?” the boy said excitedly, rifling through his papers.

“...Yes?” Rin said, grabbing the proffered forms and carefully beginning to fill them out.

“Tell her hello for me, okay? Tell her that Momo says hi!”

Rin shook his head and wondered exactly what kind of relationship his sister had with this “Momo” boy. He quickly finished filling out the forms and handed them back to Mikoshiba, who proceeded to type something into his computer.

“Ah, you’re here to see Nitori senpai!” he said excitedly. “He usually takes Saturdays off, but Makoto senpai and Nagisa kun called in a favor, so you got lucky…” He kept rambling, but Rin drowned out Mikoshiba’s words with absent-minded worrying. He retreated to one of the empty chairs in the waiting room, but hadn’t been sitting for very long when a grey-haired boy burst into the waiting room, clearly short of breath.

“Matsuoka… Rin…?” he asked, in between pants. “I’m sorry… I was… then… there was… beetle… ran…” he choked out, still gasping for air.

Mikoshiba let out what Rin could only describe as a giggle.

“Whoops! Sorry Nitori senpai!” he said. “I was wondering where Pyunsuke had run off to.”

Rin was taken aback. This was Nitori, his dentist? He barely looked older than Mikoshiba, and Mikoshiba was still playing with beetles. Rin worried about the quality of a medical institution which had beetles running rampant in its offices, but still followed Nitori, who had caught his breath and was waving for Rin to follow.

“So, what brings you here today?” Nitori said, gesturing at Rin to sit down on the giant white chair.

“Um, toothache.” Rin replied, moving his mouth as little as possible.

Now that his dentist wasn’t doubled over panting, Rin finally got a good look at Nitori. He looked young, but not as young as Rin had first guessed. Maybe around Nagisa’s age, he guessed. He had nice - really nice - blue eyes, and damn, was that a tiny mole by his right eye? Someone had paid attention to detail when making this kid.

“So how long have you had a toothache?” Nitori asked.

Rin shrugged, still distracted by his eyes. Nitori cleared his throat and raised an eyebrow.

“Uh…” Rin cleared his head of thoughts of blue eyes and moles and how nice Nitori’s voice was.

“Matsuoka san?” Nitori asked. “Can you give me some kind of time frame when you’ve had this toothache?”

“I don’t know how long I’ve had it, but it got really bad about two weeks ago,” Rin managed to get out, jerking his eyes away from Nitori’s and staring at a poster on the wall. “And it’s Rin. Call me Rin.”

Nitori blanked for a second, then nodded quickly. “Right, Rin san,” he said, then he turned away to lower Rin’s chair into the flat position. Rin was about to correct him again, but was cut off.

“Open up your mouth, and I’ll take a look!” Nitori said brightly. Oh no. This was what Rin had been dreading for the past three hours, but for the past three hours he had thought his dentist would be some rusty old man, not a cute boy with a cute voice and incredible eyes. But, in the interest of getting this fucking appointment over with, he opened his mouth, in the least menacing way possible.

Nitori, for his credit, took the whole shark teeth thing in stride, only faltering once when he reached into Rin’s mouth. A few very uncomfortable minutes later, he peeled off his gloves, and set Rin’s chair back into the upright position.

“Looks like you just have to get your wisdom teeth taken out,” he said brightly. Rin nodded.

“And, uh, how exactly -” he started, but was cut off by a yelp and a loud clatter. Rin looked at Nitori, who had dropped his clipboard and seemed to be intensely distracted by something on the ground.

A fucking beetle.

Rin made to squish it with his foot, but held back when he heard Nitori shout.

“No! Don’t kill him!” His voice was about an octave higher than it was before. “Momo kun would kill me if something happened to Pyunsuke.” Nitori was still watching the beetle intently, as if he was afraid the beetle might run somewhere else if he so much as looked away. But his stare had no effect on the beetle - Pyunsuke, as Mikoshiba had called him earlier - and it began running towards Nitori. Rin grabbed an empty paper cup off of the counter next to him and slammed it down over the beetle, then slid the clipboard that was lying abandoned by Nitori’s feet underneath.

He got up, raising the impromptu catching mechanism in triumph, but of course, he managed to hit his head on the cabinet. So much for being a smooth hero.

Nitori let out a shaky laugh.

“Rin san, are you okay?” he asked, still giggling.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Rin scowled. “But what are you going to do with this fucking beetle?”

Nitori was already sorting through the - very messy - cabinets, looking for something. A few seconds later he pulled out a jar - one that seemed much too small to hold the beetle that Rin had caught.

“Just put Pyunsuke in here for now, I’ll make Momo take him home.” Rin shrugged and complied.

“And about your teeth,” Nitori continued, “Like I said earlier, you just need your wisdom teeth out. So you could come in sometime next week, and we could get that taken care of. Would Monday morning work for you?”

“Yeah, sure.” Rin nodded. “Monday.”

Nitori grabbed piece of paper and wrote something down on it. He smiled and handed it to Rin. “Then it's a date. See you on Monday!”

Rin nodded again and exited the office, mulling over Nitori’s unusual choice of words. Before he left, he glanced down at the paper the smaller boy had handed him, and grinned.

_Nitori Aiichirou, D.D.S. call back for Rin Matsuoka on Monday at 10:30 AM_

_Notes:_

_Thanks for saving me from Pyunsuke! :D_

_XXX-XXX-XXX (call me if you need anything before Monday)_

 

~Extra Scene~

**From: Nitori.Ai**

_Rin san, if you don’t mind me asking…._

**To: Nitori.Ai**

_What_

**From: Nitori.Ai**

_How did your teeth end up like that???_

**To: Nitori.Ai**

_I sharpened them in austraila_

**To: Nitori.Ai**

_Why is there something wrong_

**From: Nitori.Ai**

_No nothing’s wrong it’s just I, uh_

**To: Nitori.Ai**

_Spit it out_

**From: Nitori.Ai**

_Do you think I would look good with teeth like yours?_

**From: Nitori.Ai**

_Just an idea..._

**To: Nitori.Ai**

_No_

**To: Nitori.Ai**

_Just… no_

**To: Nitori.Ai**

_I mean if you really want_

**From: Nitori.Ai**

_Ahhh ok Rin san thank you_

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! (sorry if Rin is a little out of character owo)
> 
> Talk to me on tumblr (please do) at geronimarco.tumblr.com


End file.
